Category: Fiction
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Winter Sonata
It was the middle of the day, and Robert was sitting on his couch, waiting for the world to end. His apartment was silent, interrupted only by the occasional hiss of the central radiator. Even a yawn would have echoed there. The city was quiet on winter Sundays. The phone call was not what startled…
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The Blizzard
“All day the storm went on. The snow did not fall this time, it simply spilled out of heaven like thousands of feather-beds being emptied.”—Willa Cather, My Antonia When the weather came down from the north with fifty-five mile an hour winds and freezing rain turning to snow, she was ready for it. Hannah didn’t…
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Christmas Eve, 1979
The aunts have been drinking. Their highball glasses are ringed with Cherries in the Snow. Their lips come toward you, to kiss you on yours. They smell like Emeraude or Timeless. Their clip-on bell earrings tinkle when they laugh, and their hose makes a swish-swish sound when they walk. They help you up to a barstool and fill your glass…
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Affection Tree
Ambulance lights painted the sidewalk. “Just tell me what you can, okay? Take your time.” “Can I call his mother?” I asked. The moon looked like a heart with clouds around it. “No. We don’t advise that.” He grimaced at the moon. “I mean, next thing you know we have her driving over here all…
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Inside
It’s a family that lives in a sprawling suburb of Los Angeles. It’s a daughter who cannot stop listening to 1960s Brit-rock from a world that existed before she was conceived. She feels at a loss for the post-pandemic-tiktok-algorithm-AI society that grows on every side of her–deep purple hedges choking out the sunshine. She does…